Yeah, I have a Go-Pro now, so I might make a few vids. Good way to learn about editing.
I'm quickly running out of trees along the back paddock fence. The previous neighbour was given these ones as seedlings, and planted them along his boundary. Unfortunately they were leftover plantation Eucalytus nitens, Shining Gum in SA, That Useless Pulp Crap down here.
They were bred specifically for a quick growth timber suitable for pulp production on a 12 to 15 year turn around. This means they prefer growing in clusters, which forces them to grow straight and fast. When planted out in a row like this, they go to spreading branches and low, stunted growth. These ones seem to have been constantly under attack from borers, with most branches riddled with so many holes that the bark eventually falls off and the branch dies.
Luckily for me, they are all on his side of the fence. Over Christmas, the new neighbour had a couple of interesting parties out in the paddock. One went for 2 days, shutting down at 2.30am and restarting with a BBQ lunch. There was much country and western music blared out at ridiculous volume, mixed with Johnny Cash and early Mylie Cyrus. On the second day they decided to have a burnout comp in their utes and hiluxes on the bit of bitumen road out the back. Halfway through I heard a loud bang and then a lovely metal grinding sound. Think they blew the diff in one of the hiluxes. They dragged it into the paddock and left it there.
Halfway between Christmas and New Year, we had really strong winds from the west. Luckily, this means the wind crossed my back paddock before hitting his trees. One of the bigger nitens split down the middle and landed right across the back of his parked hilux. A few days later, I came home from work and found he had cut the other half down. That was right on the fence next to the truck. There are a few others down the front, but we rarely get strong wind from the east, so I can safely park the work car there most nights. Anything from the north, east or south east, and I park out in the back paddock far away from all the dead trees.
I've been talking with one of the guys I share the building with at work. He used to be head of maintenance at the local weaving mill, until it was moved to Wangaratta, or Warnambool, some place starting with a W, and he is a trade qualified machinist, boilermaker and steam fitter, now working as a consultant to companies with metal/concrete surface protection issues. Things like bridges, hydro dams and generating stations. He lost access to lathes when the mill closed and might be interested in going halves with me in a decent lathe. We've been looking at some of the Hare & Forbes line, probably around $4-5k, and we plan on fitting the digital readout gear, similar to what was on the lathe I used to use. Our problem is convincing the guy he works for, who owns the shed we both work out of, to let us put it up on the mezzanine deck in the shed. It's unused space, and directly above the 15 amp plug as well as the 3 phase socket, if we went that way, although I prefer single phase as we can use it anywhere then.
Going to work on him this week. Point out all the useful things we could make for his damn Kombi. Not sure what they might be, but he probably won't think to ask.
Besides this pin I need to make, I have to replace all the rubber bushes and the metal cups that hold them, that support the transfer case. The cups look like the old head stem bearing cups on older pushbikes. The rubber bushing sits in it and the cup stops it being over tightened to the point it splits the rubber. The issue is mine are either rusted to the point of collapse, or really badly worn where the bolts were never tightened up and the slack let the transfer case assembly move around a lot. I need 15 of them. 12 for the top mounting plate, and another 3 for the round bracing rod that stops the box flexing backwards and forwards. The other issue is that the rubbers are not available. I checked the part numbers and also looked up the NSN and it seems the army had them made, or just never recorded who they got them from. I've used a few cross-reference charts and spoke to a few suppliers, but nobody has anything with similar measurements. My plan now is to get something similar in profile, with the correct size centre hole, and turn up new cups to suit.
The old rubbers looked like a disk cut out of an old thong, but thicker, with a smaller disk stuck on the bottom. They were around 1.5" across on the top with a 0.64" internal hole and the smaller bit on the bottom was 0.985" across. The whole thing was only 0.625" in overall height, but the edges were rounded to match the inside of the cup, which I suspect was just pressed tube. The more modern Nolothane ones are available with similar heights and internal diameters, but the edges are all right angles. I can easily turn up a set of new cups with the correct outer diameter where it fits into the transfer case mounting plate holes, and just machine out the inside to match the stepped Nolothane bushes.
I've been thinking about it a bit and I'm going to put the winch back in first, then the transfer case. The winch can drop in from the top easily enough, if I have someone helping to guide it as I lower it, but the bolts are a real pain to get at to tighten it up if the transfer case is already in. With the transfer case, I can slide it under the truck on the atv lift, then lift it with the crane until it is between the chassis rails. Then I can slide it forward, right up to the back of the gearbox while I fit the 2 mounting plates that attach to the chassis rails. Easy to get a socket on the heads with no transfer case in the way, and if I put them in before I lift the transfer case up, they get in the way, as the cross-member that is fixed to the top of the transfer case has to fit on top of the plates. With them bolted up, I slide the transfer case back, stick the Nolothane bushes and metal cups in place and lower it down and drop the bolts in. They are easy to get at from above and below, with the tray off.
That all sounds good, in theory. We'll just see what happens in the meantime that causes the whole procedure to change, like usual.
Greg.